I've loaded 2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian.img to a 32GB SD card and when I apply power (should be plenty of power, coming straight from a standalone PC power supply) the activity light blinks for a while and the monitor comes out of sleep but no video is displayed. I tried on two separate monitors, an old NEC and a newer Dell.

Are there any troubleshooting tips I can follow? Failing that is there a known good HDMI-->VGA adapter I can get?

Unfortunately I don't have anything in the house that will take composite video as an input.

I had a similar issue in that I would not get video displayed on my TV unless it was already in HDMI mode when I powered up the Pi. If I then switched the cable over to the monitor it displayed but would not display at all on the monitor if I started with the Pi hooked to it. Solved the problem when I found out about config.txt. You can modify that to force the Pi to output HDMI. The problem apperas to be that going through an HDMI to VGA adapter keeps the Pi from automatically detecting the monitor so it defaults to composite output. My understanding is that only one of the two outputs can work at a time. Anyway, check this wiki: http://elinux.org/RPiconfig

I'd start with just uncommenting "hdmi_safe=1". That will force the HDMI on and put it in a low resolution mode that any monitor can handle. You can comment it back out later and set your desired resolution. You may have to uncomment "hdmi_force_hotplug=1" to ensure that the HDMI always gets activated.

Converting from a HDMI to VGA signal is not advised as the converters can be hard to find (Both expensive and difficult to obtain). You'll see heaps of different ones on the market but they probably won't work. As stated on the forums in numerous places, you'd need a special converter box to convert the digital HDMI signal to VGA. Some cheap ebay or amazon product going for $10 ain't gonna do the job for you.

To save yourself from heartbreak and a hole in your wallet, you should just look for a method to convert the analog video signal to a vga plug into a monitor instead of trying to harness the HDMI signal.

ahstwin wrote:Converting from a HDMI to VGA signal is not advised as the converters can be hard to find (Both expensive and difficult to obtain). You'll see heaps of different ones on the market but they probably won't work. As stated on the forums in numerous places, you'd need a special converter box to convert the digital HDMI signal to VGA. Some cheap ebay or amazon product going for $10 ain't gonna do the job for you.

To save yourself from heartbreak and a hole in your wallet, you should just look for a method to convert the analog video signal to a vga plug into a monitor instead of trying to harness the HDMI signal.

Actually, the neewer converter is one of the ones in the wiki listed as working. Prices for converters are also getting lower all the time.

That said though, unpowered converters are still a risky gray area, because the pi has a diode in place that can easily burn out if too much power is being pulled through the HDMI port - you would be well advised to get a HDMI>VGA converter with it's own power supply, or if you're okay with a soldering iron, you can open up that unpowered converter and inject a few volts of your own...

ahstwin wrote:Converting from a HDMI to VGA signal is not advised as the converters can be hard to find (Both expensive and difficult to obtain). You'll see heaps of different ones on the market but they probably won't work. As stated on the forums in numerous places, you'd need a special converter box to convert the digital HDMI signal to VGA. Some cheap ebay or amazon product going for $10 ain't gonna do the job for you.

To save yourself from heartbreak and a hole in your wallet, you should just look for a method to convert the analog video signal to a vga plug into a monitor instead of trying to harness the HDMI signal.

Actually, I got a cheap one from eBay ($10.16 with free shipping) and it worked fine after I figured out the issue with the monitor not being detected automatically by the Pi. Not sure if they ship outside of the states but the sellers are: emilyandlily

DougM wrote:It came right up as soon as I edited the config.txt and uncommented the following line:

# uncomment if you get no picture on HDMI for a default "safe" mode
hdmi_safe=1

I realize that it's dangerous, but I performed a detailed point heat analysis (put my thumb on the board) and no heat was detected, but I'll keep an eye on it.

Thank you for all your help!

DougM

I'm currently running my monitor in it's desired mode of 1366 by 768. I had to get there by uncommenting the "hdmi_force_hotplug" line and setting the resolution using "framebuffer_width" and "framebuffer_height". For some reason, using the "hdmi_group" and "hdmi_mode" commands did not give me the desired resolution. You will need to comment out the"hdmi_safe" line to get the other settings to take effect because the safe mode forces both a hot plug and a low resolution.

The Pro Signal PSG90732 HDMI-SVGA converter definitely works with the RPi, and doesn't even cost a big toe, let alone an ARM and a leg. (Less than the $10 stated by Mr Mobius but in our lovely English pounds. A fiver'll get you one.) Don't expect any sound when using an HDMI adapter, though. You'll need stereo cable for that.

After fighting with getting my cheapo VGA converter to work on the RPi for a while I thought I'd share my results here. There are several potential problems:

* HDMI is not properly detected so that hdmi_safe=1 has to be used in config.txt, as mentioned above
* The supported monitor mode(s) are not reported back to the HDMI, so hdmi_mode has to be set to the needed resolution and refresh rate directly
* The voltage supplied to HDMI pin 18 via D1 is not sufficient so D1 has to be bridged

To the last point: D1 takes about .2V off the 5V rail so we end up with 4.8V which for my adapter wasn't enough. After bridging D1 and the config.txt settings everything started working beautifully.

BTW one can easily measure the current needed for the adapter without removing D1 by putting an ampere-meter between TP1 (5V) and the diode's cathode, next to "D1" on the PCB. In this setup, the diode is bridged immediately and no current will flow through it. In my case it was 148mA which proved that it wasn't the current that was the problem - the BAT54 can handle 200mA - but the voltage.

POST SCRIPT BY MAHJONGG:
As of raspberry PI's B+ and later, the BAT54 does no longer exist, nor does the voltage dropping problem, also the BAT54 was designed in with idea that the typical current consumption would not exceed the 20mA the serial EEPROM typical needs, it was NOT designed to support VGA converters, but the B+ (and later models) is!

Word of caution: Make sure your power supply can handle the extra current AND you are sure that you won't forget to remove the bridge before hooking up the RPi to a regular HDMI display! As mentioned previously, D1 is there for a reason which is to protect your hardware if an HDMI-connected device also supplies 5V to pin 18.

Hi! This is my first post on this forum so I hope this helps everyone.

To convert your raspberry Pi or any device from HDMI to VGA ( or from VGA to HDMI )then you will need a converter, the reason why a cable doesn't work is because HDMI is digital and VGA is analogue, so power is needed to convert the digital signal into analogue.

What I have realized is that people on the internet have been falsely selling HDMI to VGA cable converters when they know they don't work, but only sell them to make a profit for them selves. Often you see customers asking for a refund after realizing that what they just bought is nothing more than worthless plastic.

Getting to my main point, If you want to convert a Raspberry Pi device into VGA successfully you will require the following things:

1) A cheap and simple HDMI cable to connect your Raspberry Pi into a vga to hdmi converter .

2) A good quality VGA to HDMI converter, many well known websites sell these such as Amazon, i got mine from this websitehttp://scarttohdmi.co.uk/vga-to-hdmi/ , they have a good customer service and a good return policy if your converter is faulty.

3) And finally you need a cheap VGA cable which can be found in Poundland or a cheap shop in your area, this is to connect the converter into your Raspberry PI.

Once you set it up it should look something like this:

I forgot to add to the diagram that a power supply cable is connected to the vga to hdmi converter since that is vital.

Ok that's me done, hopefully this post helps the community since its my first post on this forum.

publicmontford1 wrote:2) A good quality VGA to HDMI converter, many well known websites sell these such as Amazon, i got mine from this website... , they have a good customer service and a good return policy if your converter is faulty.

I hope they have a good return policy, since you will be sending yours back.

You want a HDMI to VGA convertor, and that site does not sell them. It sells VGA to HDMI convertors, but that is useless for the Raspberry Pi.

publicmontford1 wrote:2) A good quality VGA to HDMI converter, many well known websites sell these such as Amazon, i got mine from this website... , they have a good customer service and a good return policy if your converter is faulty.

I hope they have a good return policy, since you will be sending yours back.

You want a HDMI to VGA convertor, and that site does not sell them. It sells VGA to HDMI convertors, but that is useless for the Raspberry Pi.

Sorry must of put the wrong link, the correct link is: http://scarttohdmi.co.uk/vga-to-hdmi/, if you could change it to that, it would be great! But yes you are right a HDMI to VGA converter is needed.

Gee, my cheap HDMI to VGA converter came with an HDMI male plug so the only extra cable I needed was a standard VGA one. The voltage issue someone mentioned above could well be attributed to the infamous polyfuse on the input. The more current drawn through the polyfuse, the lower the voltage. I have bypassed my polyfuse with a glass fuse and have had zero issues running ethernet, wireless, mouse, keyboard, and VGA converter all at the same time. My TP1 to TP2 voltage is rock solid at over 4.9 volts.

A fuse isn't an improvement over a polyfuse in this case, unless the polyfuse was completely unrecoverable blown multitudes of times. The reason is that a glass fuse would need more power to blow than a polyfuse of the same current (blow) value, (it's fuse wire must be heated to a much higher temperature than a polyfuse, so it needs much more energy) that means that if you use a fuse of the same current value as the polyfuse then it would cause a larger voltage drop, (to extract enough energy) than the original polyfuse.

A fuse with a resistance low enough to cause a similar drop as the original polyfuse would have such a high current rating that you just as well could have used a piece of wire instead of a fuse, in both cases you would effectively have used the short circuit and over-voltage protection.

I have also read many bad experiences with HDMI to VGA adapters, but i have also read about others who have had no problems with them. It was a risk to purchase an adapter knowing that it might not work , or even worse melt my Pi . I guess i am one of the lucky ones who has a working setup without any problems to report and no modifications to be made to the adapter or the Pi . To see it in action, read my previous post...

If you can't get your monitor to display, then read the specs for your monitor to find the correct supported display modes. Set the "hdmi_mode=" and "hdmi_group=" switchs using the lowest supported resolution first. If that works, try the next higher resolution.

Here is a list of screen resolutions in CEA or DMT format that the Pi supports. Use this list to correctly set both the "hdmi_mode=" and "hdmi_group=" switchs in CONFIG.TXT

DougM wrote:
I realize that it's dangerous, but I performed a detailed point heat analysis (put my thumb on the board) and no heat was detected, but I'll keep an eye on it.

Actually the "board" won't heat up even when the diode will burn out, The diode is too small, and can't transfer its heat well to the board! If you want to check if the diode overheats put your thumb directly on the diode, (D1) directly to the left of the HDMI connector.
But be careful or you might get a diode shaped blister on your thumb!

their adaptors are compatible with many models of laptop screen, or you can get a model of laptop screen that is compatible with their adaptors. I'm going to be connecting an LCD to my Rpi. by getting one of those neet converter devices. I have already connected my laptop screens to VGA on my small computers that have VGA ports.

Re VGA to HDMI converter.
I bought a cheap converter (not powered) connected it to R /Pi with an SD card loaded with an XBMC media program with no problems but when I changed to an SD card with the Pi OS (a version from Amazon which works with the TV) the Pi would not connect with the VGA monitor. So it looks like a software problem?